The present invention relates to a sanitization compliance monitoring system for a health care environment such as a hospital or nursing home, and particularly to a system to specifically target the hygienic state of a caregiver when interacting with a patient located in a patient bed.
Applicant's prior U.S. Ser. No. 61/437,466 filed Jan. 28, 2011, U.S. Ser. No. 61/486,491 filed May 16, 2011, and U.S. Ser. No. 13/215,823 filed Aug. 23, 2011, all of which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, relate to sanitization compliance monitoring systems.
The term “sanitization”, as used herein, refers to using sanitizer, or performing a hand-wash procedure. The handwash procedure may be preferred using a sink and dispenser, including of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,426,701 to Levy, which is incorporated herein by reference. The handwash procedure monitored may be of the procedure disclosed in the Levy patent.
Sanitization compliance monitoring systems attempt to reduce or eliminate the number of occurrences of pathogens transferred from one patient to another via care givers in a health care environment. However, the systems do not fully monitor the sanitization state of the care giver based on his or her interaction with patients and sanitization procedures performed by the care giver.
As used herein, the terms, “care giver”, “health care provider”, and “user”, are intended to be synonymous, and include any persons in a health care environment having the potential to spread pathogens, bacteria, etc., including not only doctors, nurses, orderlies and the like, but also custodians, maintenance and other personnel, and food personnel, etc., and any others who are in a health care facility, including other patients.